Eurocare Press Release: NGOS RESIGN FROM HEALTH FORUM AS COMMISSION IGNORES MEMBER STATE AND EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT CALLS FOR ALCOHOL STRATEGY

Public Health NGOs have today resigned from the EU Alcohol and Health Forum, following the announcement by Commissioner Andriukaitis that he has no plans to establish a new EU Alcohol Strategy[1]. The Commissioner’s decision goes against demands from Member States and the European Parliament for a new comprehensive Strategy to tackle alcohol harm in Europe.

Membership of the Forum, which is chaired by DG Sante, includes drinks industry representatives and public health NGOs. More than 20 health bodies, including Eurocare (European Alcohol Policy Alliance), EPHA (European Public Health Alliance) and the CPME (Standing Committee of European Doctors) today tendered their collective resignation in an open letter to Commissioner Andriukaitis.

Signatories to the letter outline their “deep concerns” about the neglect of public health and the prioritisation of alcohol industry interests. These include:

· The Commission is ignoring calls from the European Parliament and Member States to develop a new EU Alcohol Strategy

· The Commission plans to include alcohol within a wider framework for tackling chronic disease, which would fail to address many harms caused by alcohol to those other than the drinker, such as drink driving, domestic abuse and child sexual exploitation

· There is no evidence to show that the EU Alcohol and Health Forum has had any impact on public health

· The Forum was established to support the implementation of the previous EU Alcohol Strategy, which ended in 2012. With no new Strategy planned, membership of the Forum cannot be justified.

Signatories also expressed disappointment that the Commissioner had rejected requests for public health experts to have a formal structure to meet with Commission officials to discuss alcohol policy, free from vested interest groups.

Mariann Skar, Secretary General of Eurocare, said: “The Commissioner himself stated drinking behaviours in Europe are good for the Alcohol Industry but not good for Health. Eurocare represents 58 organisations in 25 countries and we deeply regret the Commission’s decision not to establish a new EU Alcohol Strategy. This flies in the face of persistent demands from Member States, the European Parliament and NGOs. The EU is the heaviest drinking region in the world and with 120,000 premature deaths related to alcohol each year, we absolutely must have a comprehensive strategy to tackle alcohol harm.”

Professor Sir Ian Gilmore, Chair of the EU Alcohol and Health Forum’s Science Group said, “This is a sad day for those who care about health in Europe. The Commission’s prioritisation of alcohol industry interests over public health has been laid bare. Many NGOs have participated actively and in good faith in the EU Alcohol and Health Forum, in the hope of making progress and reducing alcohol harm. However, with no evidence to indicate the Forum has achieved any meaningful results, and no promise of a new Alcohol Strategy, we see no alternative to walking away from this failing organization.”

Nina Renshaw, Secretary General of EPHA, said, „The alcohol industry must have raised a few glasses to DG SANTE after their admission at the last Forum meeting that they don’t even aim to improve health. The Commission has finally admitted what the health community has long suspected – that they have abandoned alcohol policy altogether. The Forum has proved worse than useless, a free PR front for the industry. The Commission even endorses the industry introducing drinking culture to young kids by promoting „responsible“ drinking in primary schools. The health community had to call time on this charade.“

Yesterday, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) launched its report “Tackling Harmful Alcohol Use”, a report assessing alcohol policy scenarios. The report has been developed over the last years and the European Alcohol Policy Alliance (Eurocare) welcomes the report and its strong recommendations for governments to implement evidence based and cost-effective alcohol policies.

Mariann Skar, Secretary General of the European Alcohol Policy Alliance, says: “Today OECD has presented a strong message to European Governments, the European Commission and the public health community. Even the most expensive interventions like health care and work place interventions are cost-effective and will give both an economic and health benefit when implemented. Most alcohol policies are not expensive to implement and leads to great health and economic benefits. Furthermore, the report shows the importance of addressing broad policy approaches such as price and marketing in addition to policies addressing only the ones who drink most”.

OECD launched its report yesterday at 11 am at OECD in Paris and at the Royal Statistical Society in London. The report and OECD press releases can be found here.

The report comes in a time of great discussions on alcohol policies in the European Union. In April 2015, the European Health Ministers agreed on the need for common EU Alcohol Policies and addressed the need for more developments from the European Commission. Later the same month, the European Parliament adopted a resolution calling for a new EU Alcohol Strategy. These calls both respond to the lack of new initiatives from the European Commission, after the previous EU Alcohol Strategy which technically expired in 2012. The OECD report gives important knowledge to the discussion and policy recommendations to the Member States and the European Commission in their upcoming initiatives addressing alcohol related harm.
(Source: Eurocare)

29 April, Brussels– Today, the European Parliament (EP) adopted a Resolution calling on the European Commission to present a new EU Alcohol Strategy to tackle health harm for 2016-2022. The clear message from MEPs comes just a week after EU Health Ministers meeting in Riga called on the Commission (1) to take action on the health impacts of alcohol. Both MEPs and Ministers have criticized the Commission for failing to update the previous EU Alcohol Strategy which expired in 2012.

Background and Purpose—Although alcohol–stroke association is well known, the age-varying effect of alcohol drinking at midlife on subsequent stroke risk across older adulthood has not been examined. The effect of genetic/early-life factors is also unknown. We used cohort and twin analyses of data with 43 years of follow-up for stroke incidence to help address these gaps.

Methods—All 11 644 members of the population-based Swedish Twin Registry born 1886 to 1925 with alcohol data aged ≤60 years were included. The interaction of midlife alcohol consumption by age at stroke was evaluated in Cox-regression and analyses of monozygotic twins were used. Covariates were baseline age, sex, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes mellitus, stress reactivity, depression, body mass index, smoking, and exercise.

Results—Altogether 29% participants developed stroke. Compared with very-light drinkers (<0.5 drink/d), heavy drinkers (>2 drinks/d) had greater risk of stroke (hazard ratio, 1.34; P=0.02) and the effect for nondrinkers approached significance (hazard ratio, 1.11; P=0.08). Age increased stroke risk for nondrinkers (P=0.012) and decreased it for heavy drinkers (P=0.040). Midlife heavy drinkers were at high risk from baseline until the age of 75 years when hypertension and diabetes mellitus grew to being the more relevant risk factors. In analyses of monozygotic twin-pairs, heavy drinking shortened time to stroke by 5 years (P=0.04).

Conclusions—Stroke-risk associated with heavy drinking (>2 drinks/d) in midlife seems to predominate over well-known risk factors, hypertension and diabetes, until the age of ≈75 years and may shorten time to stroke by 5 years above and beyond covariates and genetic/early-life factors. Alcohol consumption should be considered an age-varying risk factor for stroke.

Alcohol Concern, the national charity for alcohol misuse, have announced Alcohol Awareness Week (AAW) 2012 on the theme of „It’s time to talk about drinking“.

Alcohol Concern hopes it will help trigger all kinds of conversations about the health risks, social problems, stigmas and taboos associated with talking about the dangers of Hair of the dog alcohol. A set of conversation starter cards are available to download.

The release also states:

‚One of the main ways we are going to start the conversation is by challenging people to give up alcohol for a month in January. From AAW people will be able to sign up either as an individual or a team to give up drinking for a month. We’re going to ask people to pledge money or get sponsored to motivate them to stick at the challenge. We’ll also be providing people with tips and information on cutting down and how this will help their health, sleeping patterns and general wellbeing.‘ …
(Source: Alcohol Policy UK, 08/12/12)Comment: The theme „Let’s talk about alcohol“ for an alcohol awareness week in Switzerland was misused in some places by talking about how normal it is to drink.

Most children who are exposed to large quantities of alcohol in utero do not develop fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS). Population-based prospective data on the risk of developing components of fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD), however, are limited.

This was a prospective cohort study of 9,628 women screened during their first prenatal appointment in Chile, which identified 101 who consumed at least 4 drinks/d (exposed) matched with 101 women with no reported alcohol consumption during pregnancy (unexposed). Detailed alcohol consumption data were collected during the pregnancy. Children were evaluated up to 8.5 years of age by clinicians masked to exposure status. …

After exposure to heavy alcohol consumption during pregnancy, 80% of children had 1 or more abnormalities associated with alcohol exposure. Patterns of alcohol use that posed the greatest risk of adverse outcomes were binge drinking and high total weekly intake. Functional neurologic impairment occurred most frequently and may be the only sign to alert physicians to prenatal alcohol exposure. ….
(Source: Alcohol Reports, 07/23/12) onlinelibrary.wiley.com, 07/23/12